This isn't a stage of grief but it is a stage of life: at some point during the long process of disintegrating into a grotesque version of yourself, you stop asking rhetorically when the kids will visit, stop being horrified at the exponential indignities, stop trying to convince everybody you're still just as capable as ever, and just decide to be tickled to death at anything good. You're past caring what ol' so-and-so thinks, and save your opinion that Alabama is something to be ashamed of, not commit to, for the people at your bridge game.* When the doorbell rings you expect it to be Death; if it's the grandkids, we'll order subs and won't that just be grand!

MGoBlog, you've reached the Appreciation stage. Right now on the board you can see a thread for appreciation of Jabrill Peppers, and appreciation itself, and one for Al Borges, and I even made one for you, dear readers. Where are the rest? Where did they come from? I'll allow you this peek behind the curtain:

Poor Ace. We'll put that one with Treadwell's and Levenberry's. And Armani Reeves and Sam Grant and Josh Garnett and Bri'onte Dunn and Anthony Standifer (the second time) and all of Tim's 2011 opponent previews, and some weirdness Brian puts up every once in awhile. Okay ONE example:

(•_•) <) )> ooohh / \

I don't know. But that's your user content this week: people admitting our program feels every year of 134. Next time we have Ohio State over let's wear our ratty sweatpants and make fun of their latest girlfriend. What is she 25? Really.

Having two 5th year senior tackles don't seem to matter at all. Having an average of 1 year in the program among the three interior guys is not good, but it's not death either: the second star to the left over Michigan is UCLA. Gandalf the Maize, you are the Diarist of the Week. Also I like your wizard hat.

You probably already saw the incredibly detailed one by Space Coyote where he disagrees with Brian over whether Kerridge should be able to make that one block. I have a unifying theory: the part of the brain that has the ability to release the enzymes with which to formulate excuses is often destroyed in the process of playing or coaching football. Ask a coach sometime about the Alabama game last year; he'll probably tell you that was on execution too.

The anecdotal approach both addresses where our expectations are too high (they can't run simple stuff AND not be predictable) but mostly confirms the general complaints about stubbornness and misusing the personnel.

Etc. I think Brian linked to the weeklies in previous posts, but if you missed it here's parallels between Michigan and the Soviet Space Program. Dragonchild wants to bring helpful signs for the other team that say "WE'RE RUNNING" or "WE'RE PASSING" that our fans can use to prove just how predictable they're being. Has nobody considered what would happen if Borges just starts calling whatever's on the signs?

There are five lines up here, and room for six under each M—seven if they don't have header rows beneath. So that's maybe 26 years before we have to worry about how to fit more scores on the jug gain. How did we beat them 42-13 this year?

Twitter is vast, and there are tens of tweets I don’t see every week. If you happen across anything you think should be noted in TWIT, feel free to tweet it to @Bry_Mac. And while you’re there, you can follow @Bry_Mac. Or not. But do.

Don’t Worry, No One Will See That Tweet

Sometimes people have a hard time understanding the “social” part of social media. Take, for instance, Oregon DE commit Davin Bellamy. Last weekend, Mr. Bellamy took a visit to Eugene, and had a fine time. Unfortunately for him, he decided to (a) document that fine time, and (b) share that documentation with the world. See if you can identify the problem with this picture he tweeted (hint: it’s NOT the bong on the table):

Uh oh… backlighting.

Okay, I lied. It's the bong on the table. And while the state of Oregon did legalize weed recently, I’m pretty sure the NCAA didn’t [ED: Wrong hippie state. Somehow Oregon HASN'T legalized weed]. But I’m more concerned about the thought process. Anyone who has ever posted a picture to social media has done the same three-point check: 1) look to see if your fly is down; (2) be sure your hair isn’t doing that thing it does sometimes; (3) check for drug paraphernalia. In Davin’s defense, he was two out of three.

The other briefly shared photo that made the rounds was from none other than LaQuon Treadwell, who totally put those suggestions of Ole Miss funny business to rest by allegedly posting this little number:

Now obviously we can’t be sure that this is Treadwell. Or that this is Treadwell’s cash. Or that the cash was ill-begotten. There are plenty of reasons a teenager would have a few hundred dollars in cash, and only 93% of those reasons would violate NCAA rules. But yeah, I betchya your compliance office will probably have a word with you.

Hugh Freeze, on the other hand, is having none of your insinuations, no matter how ridiculously well-founded. Not long after the Treadwell pic made the rounds, the Ole Miss head coach took to Twitter to defend his recruits (and his program):

He has since deleted the tweet.* You have to respect the coach for defending his guys, but I bet the poor schlub in the compliance office would prefer if you didn’t direct every troll south of the Mason-Dixon line directly to his inbox. The poor guy gets to the office, fires up the coffee maker, and HOLY HELL why do I have seven thousand emails with the subject “CHEATERZ!!!!!1”?

I Tried ‘Perspective’ Once. Didn’t Care For It.

David Dawson is one of the jewels of this recruiting class, and by all accounts is a genuinely nice kid who has been through quite a bit in recent years. He also took one of the more circuitous routes to signing day, which Chantel Jennings (@ChantelJennings) documented in a recent article about how recruits are treated on social media. And I’m sure that despite his brief decommitment, Michigan fans everywhere maintained perspective and treated him with the utmost respect, especially on social media.

Fans sent him Twitter and Facebook messages telling him they hoped he broke his leg or that he was a "piece of s---."

Or not. On the bright side, the article makes clear that Michigan isn’t alone in treating kids poorly, which, hurray we're not worse than Clemson (insert sarcastic slow clap here). The moral high ground we occupied when Buckeye fans were wishing gout upon Kyle Kalis seems to be tenuous. Obviously we’re talking the least stable segments of every fanbase, but let this serve as your reminder: tweeting recruits is generally not cool, but tweeting ill-wishes to kids is even less cool.

From that same article, though, comes possibly my favorite panic-inducing out-of-context tweet of all time, in which Christian Hackenberg announces his dinner plans.

Canes is some sort of food establishment; Christian Hackenberg declared his intention to eat food. Happy Valley flips out thinking he was decommitting for Miami. I guarantee the words “NCAA conspiracy” were used. Crootin, man. Crootin.

[OBLIGATORY SCOLD: This is your weekly reminder to NOT TWEET OR FACEBOOK MESSAGE OR SEND SMOKE SIGNALS TO RECRUITS. I asked John Infante (@John_Infante, he of the Bylaw Blog and the overwhelming NCAA rule knowledge) to clarify, and he confirms what others have said: it is an NCAA violation. This remains the case until the student actually enrolls. The guys who just signed NLIs are still “prospects” to the NCAA. They are also high schoolers. So, no.]

You may remember Khaliel Rodgers as an OL with whom Michigan had a brief flirtation when there were rumors of a commit wavering last summer. He also attends the same high school as Irvin-Sills, so attention was paid. Film was evaluated. Y U NO ELITE trolls were summoned. And, of course, within a half-hour the commitment was debunked by Sam Webb and others. This was predictable, of course, because Irvin-Sills had never been on a recruiting visit, appeared on anyone’s radar, or, you know, been offered a scholarship.

The wisdom of The Who is great and all, but I’d bet a shiny new quarter that the next time someone tweets something like this, we’ll go all salmon of Capistrano all over again.

Look Away, Dave Brandon. Nothing to See Here

You’ve probably noticed that the “nameplate with no names” thing has caught on pretty big over the last couple of years. Either that, or you found it very odd that Air Force managed to field a team entirely out of guys named Service. Last week Akron tried to take it to the next level by putting the team’s twitter handle (@ZipsMBB) on the jerseys:

Synergy, we think.

Unfortunately, the NCAA decided to be a killjoy and put the kibosh on the idea. If Michigan had tried to do something like this, Ann Arbor Torch and Pitchfork would have a heck of a day. But this is Akron, so from my perspective this would have been fun. They aren’t trying to Create the Future. They’re just trying to grab some attention for a team that averaged 3,400 fans per home game last year.

If you ask me, Akron should have even taken it a step further; they should have put individual players’ twitter handles on the jerseys. And then they should have made Bill Walton call the game. The joy of hearing Walton have to utter phrases like “@I_B_Smooth41 needs to hedge harder on those ball screens” or “great job by @AkronBalla4Lyfe of recognizing the mismatch down low” would almost make up for the pain of having to listen to Bill Walton.

How to Make Friends and Influence Good ol’ Boys

Reuben Foster has had a fun year. He originally committed to Alabama, then in July, he switched his commitment to Auburn (which is like switching from Michigan to North Korea). He felt so confident in his decision that he got a rather large Auburn tattoo on his forearm, which must have made for some awkward conversation at his switcharoo back to Alabama on Monday. He then took to Twitter to explain everything to everyone:

Auburn had no problem taking him up on his invitation to hate him. Edits are mine; these fans did not care for SFW language.

This is my shocked face /makes normal face.

Unrelated Tweet of the Week

Joe Theismann had an interesting theory about the Super Bowl power outage.

More To Come?

Dan Samuelson

Michigan's big recruiting weekend delivered as expected, with Cass Tech teammates David Dawson and Delano Hill becoming the 23rd and 24th members of the class of 2013. Dawson is very much a known commodity, Hill less so—Josh Helmholdt caught up to the latter to get some clarity on his future position ($):

"Their plans for me are I am going to start off playing corner," Hill said. "If I don't like playing corner, I can always go back to playing safety. I think I can play all positions in the secondary, so it doesn't matter to me."

Hill played safety in high school but has also displayed impressive cover skills on the camp circuit; at 6'1", he'd give Michigan a bigger corner to line up on the outside.

The Wolverines hosted a surprise visitor last weekend in IN OL Dan Samuelson, a Nebraska commit who recently received a Michigan offer, per Allen Trieu ($). While Samuelson played it coy about his interest in Michigan, a Scout article from last week indicates that he took a big step by making this visit ($) [emphasis mine]:

“I truly didn’t go and look for another offer though. [Michigan] came to me. There is very little interest from me to Michigan. I really don’t think that I will take a visit there. Nebraska said that they would view that as a decommitment. I don’t want to do that. I believe that is where that will stay.”

I doubt the situation changed from Nebraska's end in the span of a few days; it seems likely that Samuelson has given up his spot in their class to see Ann Arbor. And now, 247's Todd Worly reported today that Samuelson's situation could be resolved imminently ($):

Looks like the Wolverines have made an impression and Samuelson plans on having everything figured out by Monday evening.

"I'm going to start calling everyone around 5 (p.m. EST), after I talk to Nebraska and figure things out with them," Samuelson said.

With the recent rumblings that Michigan could take a sixth offensive lineman, plus the above chronology, well... stay tuned.

Michigan also made an impression on another visitor committed to a Big Ten school, linebacker recruit and Wisconsin pledge Marcus Ball. Ball told Todd Worly that Michigan is "a great place," though he's waiting to see who the Badgers hire to replace Bret Bielema before making any decisions about his status with the Badgers ($). For what it's worth, Dymonte Thomas—one of many Michigan commits taking his official visit last weekend—tells Sam Webb that he thinks Ball will make the switch ($):

“I just met [Ball] this weekend, but I think he is going to commit to Michigan too,” said Thomas. “I’m not 100% sure, but I think he really liked us. We’ll see what happens.”

Man, Bielema is going to flip out about that gentleman's agree-- oh, right.

Today's recruiting roundup covers the latest on Derrick Green and Laquon Treadwell (this has been a recorded message), Cameron Hunt getting a little too hype, and more.

Hello, Brooklyn?

The current front page of The Wolverine teases a Mike Farrell video interview with VA RB Derrick Green, and the headline speaks for itself: "Green says Michigan has the edge". Lo and behold, that's exactly what he said($), confirming what most have presumed since Auburn and Tennessee fired their respective head coaches.

Green does, however, say that he's still open to other schools—and says recruiting is "picking up again," so it sounds like new schools are in contact with him—and his recruitment could stretch to signing day. That's a change from his earlier intentions to enroll early, and one that doesn't favor the Wolverines—Green's only visited Michigan, Auburn, and Tennessee, and would obviously be the favorite if he chose without seeing other schools.

Josh Helmholdt catches up with IL WR Laquon Treadwell, who says he still has Ole Miss out in front, followed by Oklahoma, then Oklahoma State and Michigan ($). Treadwell previously took an official to Ole Miss and will take his to Oklahoma this weekend; he hasn't scheduled any further officials but leaves open the possibility for the other two schools in his top four; he's eliminated any other schools from contention.

As you're probably well aware at this point, former Michigan commit Gareon Conleypledged to Ohio State last weekend during his official visit. The Wolverines will obviously keep pursuing Leon McQuay III, and it looks like they've already identified their backup plan for Conley: OH CB Reon Dawson, and Illinois commit who was offered last week.

[Hit THE JUMP for an update on Cameron Hunt, interest in a new '13 prospect, and more.]

Roy Roundtree hauled in a 16-yard touchdown pass to cap an improbable fourth-quarter comeback last season against Notre Dame. It came in the first night game in Big House history, gave Brady Hoke his first signature win at the school and set off a wild on-field celebration.

Players and coaches raced around looking for someone -- anyone -- to hug.

Not Jeff Hecklinski.

The Michigan receivers coach paced around trying to find cell service. Moments after the biggest win of his career, he wanted to call his wife. But not to celebrate -- to see if she was OK.

"Our current setup provides a lot of challenges,” said Tom Nevala, chair of the Division I Men’s Ice Hockey Committee and senior associate athletics director at Notre Dame. “You need to find buildings that are neutral sites, have NHL ice and ideally are within close proximity to the host school’s fan base. Right now for the most part, we really need the host to qualify if we are going to have good attendance and atmosphere at our regionals. In an effort to increase attendance, the NCAA has been working with the hosts to try and make tickets more affordable but the nature of neutral sites and non-traditional game times works against us a bit.”

Translated from guy-who-wants-to-keep-his-job to raging bloggerese that is a slavering attack on the current format. I like you, Tom Nevala. You're all right.

His suggestion:

“Personally, I would like to see us move to an on-campus best-of-three series format for the first round,” Nevala said. “The top seeds would host regardless of size of its building. Right now we do it at the conference level and it works very well. There are upsets even with the home ice advantage and the atmosphere for everyone involved would be better. We have such great campus facilities that are such a part of the fabric of college hockey, it’s a shame that the national tourney isn’t played in them.”

Massive improvement, though it does leave you with eight teams and no suggestion as to what to do with them. I've seen other people propose a "super regional" featuring just the two games, but that runs into the same issues. May as well just extend the season a week and do best two-of-three again, then have a Frozen Four.

Unfortunately, Nevala then goes on to say "the coaching body" is "set on having the regional games at neutral sites," which means we must fire every single D-I coach and replace them with people who aren't CHL sleeper agents.

Gambling in this establishment. WHL hammers Portland for benefits over and above the ones they're allowed to give.

Schedule strength so far. Michigan fares well in Luke Winn's latest power rankings:

Michigan's about to fade in this department as they take on an array of low-major teams and struggling Arkansas and West Virginia outfits, but right now you can take Michigan's stats as seriously as any compiled six games into a season. Duke, meanwhile, has basically locked down a one-seed at this point with wins over Kentucky, Louisville, OSU, VCU, and Minnesota. I be like dang.

1. Overall, their percentage of P&R possessions has dropped from 18.0 to 14.5, according to Synergy.
2. P&Rs still make up a big portion of Burke's game, but when he does them, he's passing 55.6 percent of the time, as compared to 44.9 last year. His pass/shoot ratio out of P&Rs is the opposite of what it was in '11-12.
3. His derived offense from all P&R possessions is 1.127 PPP -- way up from 0.978 PPP last season. He has to force fewer shots, and he has better passing options on the perimeter.

I'm surprised the pick and roll was only 18% of Michigan's shot generation last year. I wonder what it was in year two of Darius Morris.

A note on the Dawson stuff: I'm surprised that opinion is divided on whether re-extending an offer to the kid is a good idea. The guy has had a rough go of it this year with his father dying unexpectedly and if Michigan is back in the picture it's because he manned up, went to Michigan, and laid it out. Weigh the twitter blasts against swallowing your pride and doing that as a 17-year-old. If Hoke thinks he's good, he's good. Michigan has been meticulous about getting quality kids after The Process forced them to take a couple fliers on kids they didn't really know.

Meanwhile, the increasingly-infamous Policy about committed recruits visiting other places is way overblown. Dawson got his offer pulled because he was not upfront; Michigan is still recruiting Conley after he decommited. All the policy means is "don't think you're saving a spot in Michigan's class if you're visiting other schools."

Michigan has two states of recruiting:

COMMITTED: Keep out of trouble and keep your grades up and you will be in the class. We will stand by you if you have a bad year or get injured. You do not take visits to other schools. If you do, they automatically move you into the other category.

UNCOMMITTED: If you have an offer they'll continue to recruit you but they can revoke that offer at any time until they move you into the other category by mutual agreement. If your leg explodes tough cookies.

Lacy is a UCLA commitment that was also offered by Michigan this week. His consideration of other schools, however, is not a new development. From the moment he committed to the Bruins back in September he mentioned his plan to still take trips to other campuses. …

"I am committed (to UCLA) and I originally did it because I felt strongly that is where I want to go. But I was upfront with (UCLA assistant) Coach (Adrian) Klemm from the beginning that I would still take trips, and he was OK with that. I just want to make sure I am doing the right thing and making the right decision."

This is an offense against the English language, and that's probably why Hoke doesn't go for it. Also it's a fiction: Lacy is one-way committed to UCLA. He expects UCLA to be committed to him—he would be pissed if the Bruins took some other OL and were like "sorry full up." He reserves the right to flit off to somewhere else late.

Michigan isn't playing that game, and that is the extent of The Policy. You get two categories. Pick one. None of this half-in half-out stuff.

Prognosticator hat. One man's impression of how things will work out:

Conley: MICHIGAN by a nose. Last visit, Oregon doesn't appear to be going for him hard or at all at this point, parents pushing for M. OSU visit just a one-off Thursday instead of a full official.

Dawson: MICHIGAN. Really seemed to regret how things worked out now; doubt Michigan would re-offer without a good idea of how the story ends.

Derrick Green:MICHIGAN. Options: fired coach, fired coach, Ole Miss, place that will be nuked by NCAA in near future. Early enrollment make it very hard for fired coach places to catch up. With the dead period, a guy who gets hired today would have about two weeks to build a relationship. Ole Miss or Michigan? Since the kid isn't from Mississippi that has to be no contest. If it is Ole Miss, I swear to never set foot in that state because I won't be able to leave.

Leon McQuay: Vanderbilt, but if James Franklin gets snapped up by someone else that would probably tip the scales to Michigan.

LaQuon Treadwell: Oklahoma or Oklahoma State. Seems like if he was going to drop to Michigan he already would have. Maybe he's just indecisive.

Michigan adds wildcard or two. That would put them at 25 give or take the status of the longsnapper, who I know I know they said would be getting a full ride but we heard the same thing with Morales; dollars to donuts the deal is he is at the top of the walk-on board permanently. They're at 25 now pending Mike Jones not getting a fifth year and Lewan entering the draft, so even if the LS is on full scholarship it would only take one extra piece of attrition for Michigan to have extra room. That's almost inevitable. You can see that they've offered a half-dozen players lately, mostly OL and LBs. I'd guess they add one or the other, with Cal OL commit Cameron Hunt the random guess I'm making. More likely they will pull someone out of nowhere a la Willie Henry.

It would be weird to have two decommitted guys recommit—in my recollection only one decommit has ever re-upped with Michigan: Will Campbell. But that's the way my wind is blowing to day you guys.

"Wow, is this committee going to have pressure," Livengood said. "The thing that jumps out at me is that there are just four teams, it's not enough of a sample. I was not a proponent of going larger than four, and this changed my mind totally."

Sure you weren't, UNLV dude.

Meanwhile, this committee assembled to prevent mistakes like Stanford getting picked over Oregon last year because Oregon played and lost to LSU while Stanford did not made the exact same mistake in reverse by selecting Oregon over Stanford because Stanford played ND and lost (in overtime on a terrible call) while Oregon played Arkansas State, Fresno State, and Tennessee Tech in their nonconference schedule and Stanford has to beat a good UCLA team again to win the Pac-12. Way to reward scheduling, guys.

As always, people in charge of stuff are just in charge of stuff and may or may not deserve to be.

Today's recruiting roundup covers Gareon Conley's decommitment, the candidates to fill the final few spots in the '13 class, and more.

Conley Decommits: Is He Still An Option?

In a move months in the making, Gareon Conley has decommitted from Michigan($, info in header) after visiting Ohio State last weekend, in accordance with the no-visit policy of Brady Hoke. While not a crippling blow to Michigan's recruiting class—three cornerbacks remain in the fold in Ross Douglas, Jourdan Lewis, and Channing Stribling—the loss of Conley removes one of the more dynamic athletes among the commits.

While similar situations with Pharaoh Brown and David Dawson resulted in Michigan no longer pursuing either prospect, TomVH reports (above link) that the Wolverines will continue to recruit Conley—likely because Conley was up-front about his intentions to visit other schools and stayed in communication with the coaches, unlike Brown or Dawson. It's likely that the battle for Conley's services comes down to Michigan and Ohio State; while Conley has serious interest in Oregon, the Ducks have yet to offer and it doesn't appear that one is coming.

I think Michigan still has a pretty good shot here. In the immediate aftermath of the Ohio State visit, Conley said he was still 100% committed to Michigan, and multiple reports stated that he left the game early and hardly interacted with other Buckeye recruits. While Ohio State will get a serious look, expect Michigan to be in it until the very end for Conley, especially since he could get a shot at receiver for the Wolverines as well.

[Hit THE JUMP for the latest on two new O-line targets, a rundown of the available 2013 options, and more.]